wellcome | 2.0 Test Drive Meme

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2.0 Test Drive Meme

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Welcome to Well! Characters arrive the same way every month. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with no items from home. This month, there is a strong possibility that those old west style clothes include a pair of jorts or daisy dukes.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of May onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during May and June. This will be the only TDM for April, May, and June.

Applications are open April 26th until May 1st, and May 27th until June 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

All-Night Diner

Content warnings: feelings of euphoria and mild intoxication, exhaustion

There’s banner over the diner's doorway reading Welcome!, with colorful flags drooping in the heat. Inside, the waiter greets you with a wide smile and an announcement:

“Welcome to the Stardust Diner! Pie’s on the house today. Have a seat.”

During the day, the diner is just that: a diner. You can get anything on the very extensive menu, including prickly pear lemonade. The pie is free, and everything else is put on the tab for your room that will never come due, probably. It seems like a shame to eat that pie all alone! Accepting a piece of pie makes you feel like you should share this moment with someone. Luckily all the booths are plush and open, and it’s easy to plop down with a stranger to share this special moment.

At night, the mood shifts. The diner’s neon sign is a beacon against the thick darkness, beckoning you in with blinking lights and a line of text reading FORGET YOUR WORRIES. Inside, country-swing music rolls in time with throbbing red lights. The tables have been pushed aside to make room for a makeshift sticky dance floor, and the atmosphere is intoxicating.

It’s as easy as anything to be swept along with the vibes, the dancing, the intensity of it all. When you start dancing, you really do forget your worries. You forget that you don’t know how you got here and that you don’t may not even know the person beside you; you forget that you’re supposed to be anywhere else except here. Everything feels briefly perfect and beautiful, meant to be, no matter what else is happening to you.

When you stumble outside, it will be dawn, no matter how long you think you’ve been there, and you’ll be exhausted enough to simply curl up right there in the sand and fall asleep. Hope you made a friend kind enough to drag you home, or that someone wakes you up!

tl;dr:

The diner is open and the pie is free.
If you get a slice of pie, you feel compelled to share it with someone.
At night, the diner transforms into essentially a nightclub. The vibes are intoxicating and you can forget all your worries and dance the night away.
You can only leave at dawn, and your body will be exhausted. Better get help getting back to your room!

Something’s Coming

Content warnings: blood, blood-sucking, monsters

A few hours after dusk, strange creatures begin to scurry from shadow to shadow, chasing after anything that moves: chupacabras. Large ones. They’re big creatures, the size of large dogs with spikes down their spines and tails, dark and hairless with fearsome teeth. They are everywhere, and they are hungry.

They are indiscriminate in who they try to bite: the biggest among you is just as at risk as the smallest, but the bigger you are, the more of them might come for the fight. No matter where you are, there’s a risk: they seem adept at making their way into buildings. You might find one looming over your bed, resting on your chest, getting ready to bite; one might slip into the diner while you’re dancing and latch on when you’ve forgotten to be concerned.

If a chupacabra manages to bite you, it will suck your blood, and it won’t stop until you’re completely drained unless you do something about it. Having your blood sucked by one is not a pleasant experience, it’s excruciatingly painful and the creatures will do their best to keep you prone while eating their fill. The more they drink, the more exhausted you’ll get, until it’s very difficult to fight them off.

They can be killed or scared off, but the further they are into a fight or into their meal, the harder they are to get rid of. If a chupacabra has latched on to you, you’ll need help escaping!

tl;dr:

Chupacabras strike the town at dusk.
They want to suck your blood, and are indiscriminate in who they attack. They will try and drain you completely.
They can be fought or scared off. It's easier to get rid of them if you have a pal.

The Walls Have Eyes

Content warnings: eyes, trypophobia

There are eyes everywhere. They peer out of cracks in walls, the floor, the grout in your shower, an open cut in your skin. There are even eyes in the craters on the moon, staring down at you unblinking.

These eyes seem familiar, even if you don’t remember them. You feel like you do. You feel a heavy weight settle over you when you look at them, guilt curdling in the pit of your gut.

The eyes belong to someone, or someones, who you’ve hurt or let down. They belong to your greatest mistake, to someone who you left behind, to someone who you regret. The same eyes over and over again, or the eyes of many who you’ve hurt, watching you, judging you, pleading for you to save them or apologize or make up for the mistakes you may not even remember making. You just know that you made them. They eyes don't lie.

The more you ignore these eyes, the more they seem to encroach on you: appearing in the walls, following you around corners, in the creases of your knuckles, the fold of your sheets. They replace the eyes of the people around you, the same eyes staring at you from everywhere you look.

Your skin itches with the constant feeling of being watched. Your head feels tight, and your own eyes feel too full, like there’s too much of you inside your skin. You’d do anything to get away from this feeling.

Soon enough, the mounting pressure explodes: you have to confront them and your guilt and your mistakes, and beg for the forgiveness they’re asking of you. Even if you don’t remember what those mistakes were, or why you should feel guilty, you have to tell someone. If you don't, the feeling will only mount, until all you can see are eyes. Eyes, just eyes.

tl;dr:

The eyes of someone(s) who embodies your regret appear in the cracks of the world around you.
The more you ignore the eyes, the more of them appear, and the more you feel an intense, heavy sense of guilt.
The guilt you feel can be based on things you remember, or things you don't. If it's based on things you don't know, your head will also hurt.
The eyes will ease if you admit your guilt, to the best of your ability. Tell someone your guilt, and the eyes will recede.
If you don't, your whole world will become eyes.

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"Cheers," murmurs John, and he takes the handkerchief. Handing it back smudged scarlet with his blood feels— wrong, in the migraine sort of way, which he's growing impatient with. He dismisses it as rude regardless and tucks the dirty handkerchief in his pocket. He can give it back when no one's bleeding from the face about cows.

"Any advice on where to start? I'm finding headaches under every stone. Literally, here."

At first, Martin thinks the man standing in the graveyard might need help - something in the way he's just staring off into the distance. There's no shortage of weird things that happen around town, so maybe this guy is just the victim of one more.

He's not entirely sure what to expect when the stranger opens with 'pretend this is a normal question' except for anything but. Feeling skeletons sure wasn't on the list, though, and suddenly it's clear. This guy isn't the victim of some weird thing, the odds are, he is some weird thing.

"Ah. What? No, no - I, uh, definitely can't feel any skeletons?" It's not an intentional question stammered out, but Martin can't help following it up with, "Why? Can you?"

1. Since the NPCs have human physiology, does this extend to having a recognizably human nervous system?

2. If the above answer is yes, are those nervous systems vulnerable to external manipulation from an applicable power? This is specifically only control of physical movement, no access to the mind, i.e. forcing involuntary muscular spasms, bodily 'puppeting', using their sensory systems at a distance, that kind of thing.

1. Yes it does.

2. Sure can! You can manipulate them to your heart's desire. The receptionist, general store owner, and bartender don't react at all. The waiter gets scared and may ask for mercy. The grave digger will get violent.

When you're done messing with them, if you've moved them from their usual spot, they will work to return to that spot. If you look away for too long, they will disappear and reappear where they came from.

Thank you, that answer is so much more ominous than I could have dreamed!

Pal smiles sympathetically. “The trick, in my experience, is to separate the effort to remember from the effort to learn. You’re not trying to recall something you used to know, you’re discovering something new—about yourself, yes, but also about this place in which we’ve found ourselves. If you feel yourself begin to remember something, don’t pursue it. Let it go.” He shrugs ruefully. “It takes some practice, and a bit of mental gymnastics, but it is possible.”

He takes something else out of his pocket. It’s a coin, or at least it’s coin-shaped—any identifiable markers are long rubbed off—that Palamedes found in the depths of one of the chasms that has appeared in Wellstone. It’s a thousand years old, at least, and once belonged to someone, though who, he cannot figure out.

“Take this, and tell me what you see. Don’t try anything, just observe.”

This one doesn't hurt to touch, so John takes it readily. He smooths the pads of his fingers over the worn-away face of the thing, fidgets his blunt thumbnail against its edge.

"This might be less my wheelhouse than cow bones," he says, slowly. "It feels like a grave. The bones are like beacons, they catch your eye. But everything here is lit by the same glow... it's all one big soup of death."

He flips the coin and catches it. Without remorse, he adds:

"And I can't make heads or tails of it."

The guy winces, but in the awkward, smiling way of someone making an embarrassing confession at a party. He scrubs a hand back through his short hair, blows out a breath.

"Maybe a bit. How bad do you think it would be, hypothetically, if I thought I could sort of... see the skeletons in the graves? Would we chalk that up as normal-grade going crazy, or...?"

[ He cracks a smile, at that. ]

Gaius. Bit less exciting. Good to meet you.

Palamedes allows a crooked smile in response to the pun. “It is, isn’t it? I’ve come to believe that that aura of death may be quite literal. There are the graves, of course. But, more than that, I fear that innumerable people have died in this town, over and over, for a very long time. It’s happened so often, in fact, that even simple objects carry some sort of residue.”

He takes back the coin. “But that’s a bit heavy for your first day, isn’t it? As for your own abilities, if you don’t mind me speculating, I have to wonder if they are trigged by organic matter specifically. Or maybe it’s just bones. Gives you a starting point, at least.”

John hands the coin back readily enough, lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug at a bit heavy. It all sounds bleak on paper, maybe, but it hadn't quite occurred to him to be creeped out. It doesn't feel spooky. The hum of death-energy feels vast and steady as the desert around them, and has the same sort of majesty: beautiful, ancient, uncaring.

"I'm alright with being the bone guy. Happy to help with some death-themed archaeology— though maybe that's all archaeology, when you think about it." He snaps his fingers in sudden, pleased revelation: "You and me, we'll be Indiana Bones."

Is that the bit they're in? He wasn't aware, but it sounds like it could be true.

"Not mind control," he says, with a slightly uncertain smile. It hurts, again, to dwell on this. "Haven't figured out the lasers yet. Hopefully I'll crack that one just in the nick of time, when we're under attack by," and here he waves a hand, vague, "desert monsters. Zombies, apparently."

"Lasers are good," Alec says, lightly, "Maybe you can make their heads explode. Grapes in a microwave."

That's how you deal with zombies, going by jumbled impressions of digitized ghouls on the other end of imaginary weapons. He's pretty sure the guy isn't being entirely serious about the lasers, but the zombies don't sound that unbelievable.

"I'd rather deal with zombies than whatever is going on with the meat puppets." Alec turns to the waiter, who's cheerfully polishing a milkshake glass. "Hey, dipshit. You know anything about the brain-hungry undead?"

"You tried our pancakes yet? They're just the fluffiest things. I could eat 'em all day," the waiter answers, brightly. Alec pulls a face and tsks, shaking his head.

"See? Now that's disturbing."

Indiana Bones. Palamedes faintly mouths the two words, as though maybe that will make their meaning clear. But they remain absolutely nonsensical.

He decides to smile politely and move on. “There are an awful lot of bones about, so we could use a bone guy, to be honest. I’ve found a few here—on the surface that is, I’m not about to go digging—and more in the canyons that cut through town. To be frank, it paints an unsettling picture of the town’s past.”

“But that's where the death archeology comes in," and here he does smile; that quip he thinks he understands. "The more we can discover about what might have happened here previously, the more we can prepare for what may be to come.”

Pal doesn't get it, and that feels— something. Another almost-something, another crack in his mind he could dig his fingers into. Pry it open for more headache.

But maybe Pal has the right idea, here: he just notes that as new information and carries on.

"Sounds ominous," he agrees, mildly. "I'm in. Next expedition, just point me at the bones."

Maybe they'll all freak him out like the cow's rib; maybe they won't. He'll be learning something, either way. Sooner or later, it'll be something he can use.

John tips his head like he's really considering the head-exploding plan. Still: it's the demonstration that's properly spooky. He whistles long and low, impressed, as the guy walks away.

"Here's hoping those aren't the zombies. I don't love the idea of ordering pancakes by day and," here he makes a horrible little boom gesture with his fingers, "by night."

That's a good whistle. Alec makes an internal note to find out if he knows how to whistle later, for similar conversational purposes.

"Doubt it." A quick break to cram more fries into his mouth, watching the waiter go through more of his mechanical routine. "Zombies are dead. They're not."

Alec drags his straw back to his mouth and drinks deeply, one long continuous obnoxious slurp. He taps his fingers on the counter top. The waiter's left foot catches funny on the floor, and so he stumbles awkwardly.

The waiter's smiling expression shifts. It's barely noticeable, a faint and passing consternation, hardly a dent in his sunny good cheer before he rights himself and keeps moving. Alec has stopped slurping.

"Careful," he says, softly. "That floor looks slippery."

Alec's plate of fries slides down the counter to within John's reach. He slips off the stool and stretches his arms out behind his back, rolling his wrists.

"You can have the rest of those, if you want. I just remembered I have to go check on something. Best of luck with the laser eyes, yeah?"

John watches. It's a little thing, easy to dismiss, and yet. He feels the stumble like the hitch of some phantom limb; it's all cluttered in at the edges of his awareness, his peripheral-vision-but-not. Kills him with migraine when he tries to untangle the details, but if he just sits back and trusts his gut, he knows what he's seeing. There are muscle groups and medical terms just past the tip of his tongue.

Mind control? he could say. Or some tutting concern, probing and intrigued. I get the cool eyes and you get telekinesis for assholes?

"Sure," he says instead, like he believes it. But he's looking at Alec too thoughtfully to sell that. "If you find the zombies, let me know."

He takes up a fry and settles in to watch the waiter walk away.

There's a version of Alec that would know enough to pretend to flinch under the thoughtfulness of John's more-than-human gaze. This version meets the balefulness of the floating coronal ring with a lesser kind of thoughtfulness, the pale blue as shallow as the black is deep.

"Likewise." Alec smiles like any mildly obnoxious teenage boy might smile. "Unless you get bit first."

He walks out of the diner with a slight saunter, brightening his smile as he goes past the once-more oblivious waiter. He'll be halfway back to the hotel when he realizes he didn't ask for the stranger's name, and sitting on the front desk when it occurs to him that he probably should have. Oh, well.

It's weird. It's beyond weird, but at least the stranger seems as perplexed about it as Martin does, and really, is it any weirder than when he arrived and there were eyes everywhere, even blinking up at him in his oatmeal?

"Well... Weird things happen here sometimes. I guess this wouldn't be the weirdest, exactly? And, I mean, I guess if you have the presence of mind to think you might be going crazy, you're probably not?" There's a beat of hesitation. "When you say, you can see the skeletons in their graves, though, do you mean you can like, see them through the dirt see them, or...?"

"Not see them see them," he agrees, as though relieved to sort this out aloud, "it's more like— you know when you're in a dark room with somebody, and you know where they are, even though they haven't moved in a bit? That peripheral feeling, you know?"

He chews his lip, considers this.

"Suppose it's not much better to say I can feel the skeletons, is it. I'd probably chalk that up as sounding worse. I swear it doesn't feel creepy."

It's a bit concerning, this stranger and his ability to... see, or rather feel the skeletons in the ground and Martin is genuinely unsure which would be worse.

"Yeah... yeah, that's definitely... um. Unique, I guess?" It's probably the kindest way he can describe it anyway. "But, I mean, I guess it wouldn't feel creepy if it's something you could always do?"

Edited 2023-09-30 03:59 (UTC)

He murmurs unique under his breath, wounded but accepting. He deserves it. That's fair.

"Suppose that's one way to figure things out. See what feels natural, right? Or gives you a splitting migraine to think about."

Martin shrugs a little. "Well, yeah. I mean. If it wasn't something you had before you got here, there probably would be... I don't know. Some kind of trigger for it? Like getting bitten by a radioactive zombie or something."

"To be honest," he admits, "it would not surprise me if we had those out here."

He gestures broadly to the very spooky desert, and more specifically its graveyard. Probably not a reassuring place for this line of thought.

"Nothing on your end, though? No sudden flares of spooky insight? It doesn't have to be bone-related."

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